You have to be in the right frame of mind to watch Sharknado 2: The Second One.

As was the case with its Twitter-conquering predecessor, Sharknado 2 is purposely campy. It's a comedy but the characters don't know it. Therefore, think of the Batman TV series from the 1960s. The Sharknado franchise has a similar structural philosophy, and if you can embrace that, it's hilarious.

Sharknado 2: The Second One debuts Wednesday, July 30 on Space in Canada and on Syfy in the United States. This time twin Sharknados – which are tornados that suck up sharks over the ocean and then spew them out on land to munch on the helpless populace – are headed for New York City.

Stars Ian Ziering and Tara Reid still can't believe that the first Sharknado – which will re-air immediately prior to the sequel – became a social-media phenomenon.

“When we got the (original) script, the name of the movie was Dark Skies,” Reid said. “Then, a week or so into it, they tell me and Ian, 'We're changing the name to Sharknado.' And we said, 'Absolutely not.' Ian's on the phone to his agent saying, 'Get me off this, take my name off.' I'm going, 'This is ridiculous.'”

Ziering had a practical reason to stick around, but he wasn't happy about it.

"Even at the beginning, I only did the movie to cover my insurance," Ziering said. "I told my wife, 'I don't think this is something I should do.' But with one child on her hip and another in her belly, she said, 'Look, you need to work.' And I realized, 'Oh, man, I have to take one for the team.'

“I had to get my insurance in order, and you have to make so much through SAG (Screen Actors Guild) to get it, and this met that requirement. So I was like, 'All right, I'll do it,' but I did it begrudgingly. And when they told us they were renaming it Sharknado, I thought, 'That is the final nail in my coffin.'”

When shooting was done, Ziering and Reid bolted and tried to forget Sharknado, barely even telling anyone about it.

“I was in Mexico when it came out,” Reid said. “And I get a phone call saying, 'It's trending No. 1 on Twitter,' and I was like, 'What is?' I didn't even know. Because we did zero press for the film, nothing. We seriously thought nobody was going to see it and we would just take the money and run.”

Ziering was working with Chippendales in Las Vegas when Sharknado exploded.

“Between numbers I come back, I'm looking at my phone, and my wife was trying to reach me, my phone was beeping and vibrating like it was broken or possessed,” Ziering said. “Then I read the first couple of messages of the 200 text messages I got, and within the first half-hour I got 25 phone calls, and everyone is telling me, 'You're trending on Twitter, Sharknado is trending, even Steve Sanders (Ziering's character on Beverly Hills, 90210) is trending.' And I'm like, 'Is it all good?'

“But it ended up having a lot of positive spin, and the movie really accomplished so much in such a little amount of time, because this is a digital-age buildup. They delivered something nobody expected. What's the last TV movie you remember?”

Whether Sharknado 2 is as memorable as the original remains to be seen, but there are plenty of familiar faces in the sequel to pique your interest. Besides Ziering and Reid, other roles, big and small, are played by the likes of Vivica A. Fox, Mark McGrath, Kelly Osbourne, Judd Hirsch, Andy Dick, Judah Friedlander, Al Roker, Matt Lauer and Billy Ray Cyrus. Plus, exclusively for Canadian viewers, a brief Rob Ford-inspired scene will be included.

“If we play it just as a comedy, it's not funny, it won't work,” Reid said. “I still don't really get the success of it. But what makes it funny is playing it real. The scenes are so ridiculous, but you have to play it seriously.”

So the actors must play it seriously, but the viewers can't take it seriously. Sharknado 2 continues to walk the Batman tightrope.